Windows 8 Tips and Support

[Foxfyre]

Exactly TK. While I appreciate technology that allows us to do so many amazing things and opens up worlds for us, I cannot help but resent the intentional obsolescence that makes new stuff so darn expensive. And most especially when it takes things we enjoy away from us. (Not that I understood more than half of what you were talking about. )

 

[Ropey]

Speaking of hating all the new fangled stuff, I also hate Office 2013. But my existing Office software is ten years old and doesn't cope well with documents from the newer versions. Sigh.

I quite like the intuitiveness of Office 2013. Otherwise, office 2003 did everything I needed. That being said, the ribbon's intuitiveness is very useful, especially for Excel but I imagine that's because I use excel more than Word. I would thing those who use Word and who also use a lot of it's features would also find that intuitiveness beneficial.

I also like the connectivity to the SkyDrive Pro that Office 2013 gives me and my phone/tablet. So the connectivity in Windows 8 is likely the best part of it for me. The rest is nice but I did like the prettiness of Windows 7. That being said, I like the snappiness of Windows 8.

 

[Ropey]

I also can't dual boot to my other hard drive without having to go into bios or restarting the machine..it's pissing me off. I am not a big fan of the UEFI style BIOS system....

I'm dual booting from SSD (Win8) and IDE (Win7) without having to go into the bios. I just had to OS install both of them with the other drive disabled.

Then I just press the boot function key (For ASUS F8) and choose which drive to boot from.

I've also installed Win8 first and then Win7 secondly on the same setup but with both drives functional. Then a bootloader is setup in the main boot drive (win8) and when I start up the machine I get to choose after the initial system boot. The problem with that method is that if the first drive fails, so does the boot loader and now I have to perform a short win8 repair for it to recognize that there's only one OS left and setup for that.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Speaking of hating all the new fangled stuff, I also hate Office 2013. But my existing Office software is ten years old and doesn't cope well with documents from the newer versions. Sigh.

Download and install open office or Libre Office, it works with Office 2013 fine and is free.

 

[TemplarKormac]

I also can't dual boot to my other hard drive without having to go into bios or restarting the machine..it's pissing me off. I am not a big fan of the UEFI style BIOS system....

I'm dual booting from SSD (Win8) and IDE (Win7) without having to go into the bios. I just had to OS install both of them with the other drive disabled.

Then I just press the boot function key (For ASUS F8) and choose which drive to boot from.

I've also installed Win8 first and then Win7 secondly on the same setup but with both drives functional. Then a bootloader is setup in the main boot drive (win8) and when I start up the machine I get to choose after the initial system boot. The problem with that method is that if the first drive fails, so does the boot loader and now I have to perform a short win8 repair for it to recognize that there's only one OS left and setup for that.

Nono, SSDs are too rich for my blood. I'm running two SATA HDD's. Both of them are SATA 3's. A 1.5 TB with 8 and a 500GB with 7. I get to the selection screen, I select Windows 7, it kicks me back to the selection screen. So I go into BIOS without making any changes, exit and it boots 7 no problem. If I set 7 as default in msconfig, it takes me to the win7 bootloader and it does the same thing. I have never seen anything like this..

Also, it could be that my secondary HD needs to be set as the slave.. I've tried everything else.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I also can't dual boot to my other hard drive without having to go into bios or restarting the machine..it's pissing me off. I am not a big fan of the UEFI style BIOS system....

Just wait till boxes start coming out without the option to turn off the "secure" boot.

 

[Foxfyre]

Speaking of hating all the new fangled stuff, I also hate Office 2013. But my existing Office software is ten years old and doesn't cope well with documents from the newer versions. Sigh.

Download and install open office or Libre Office, it works with Office 2013 fine and is free.

Does it have all the extra stuff--mail merge, templates for name tags and labels, formats for newsletters and other publications and power point presentations I am responsible for? Excel is such wonderful software, does the free software have the same capabilities?

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Speaking of hating all the new fangled stuff, I also hate Office 2013. But my existing Office software is ten years old and doesn't cope well with documents from the newer versions. Sigh.

Download and install open office or Libre Office, it works with Office 2013 fine and is free.

Does it have all the extra stuff--mail merge, templates for name tags and labels, formats for newsletters and other publications and power point presentations I am responsible for? Excel is such wonderful software, does the free software have the same capabilities?

Yes...
Calc Features » LibreOffice
"Powerpoint"..... Impress Features » LibreOffice

 

[Ropey]

Open office is quite a robust free application and it allows for serious conversions. I use it as a conversion tool. It's better than office 2013 for that purpose and it's as good as office 2013 for any basic/intermediate and even some advanced use. Customizing any of the platform is via java scripting and so is somewhat more insecure than Office 2013 but for free?

It's grand imo.

 

[Ropey]

I also can't dual boot to my other hard drive without having to go into bios or restarting the machine..it's pissing me off. I am not a big fan of the UEFI style BIOS system....

I'm dual booting from SSD (Win8) and IDE (Win7) without having to go into the bios. I just had to OS install both of them with the other drive disabled.

Then I just press the boot function key (For ASUS F8) and choose which drive to boot from.

I've also installed Win8 first and then Win7 secondly on the same setup but with both drives functional. Then a bootloader is setup in the main boot drive (win8) and when I start up the machine I get to choose after the initial system boot. The problem with that method is that if the first drive fails, so does the boot loader and now I have to perform a short win8 repair for it to recognize that there's only one OS left and setup for that.

Nono, SSDs are too rich for my blood. I'm running two SATA HDD's. Both of them are SATA 3's. A 1.5 TB with 8 and a 500GB with 7. I get to the selection screen, I select Windows 7, it kicks me back to the selection screen. So I go into BIOS without making any changes, exit and it boots 7 no problem. If I set 7 as default in msconfig, it takes me to the win7 bootloader and it does the same thing. I have never seen anything like this..

Also, it could be that my secondary HD needs to be set as the slave.. I've tried everything else.

Sata's don't have the master/slave IDE reservations. What's your computer/motherboard make/model?

 

[Glendower]

Open office is quite a robust free application and it allows for serious conversions. I use it as a conversion tool. It's better than office 2013 for that purpose and it's as good as office 2013 for any basic/intermediate and even some advanced use. Customizing any of the platform is via java scripting and so is somewhat more insecure than Office 2013 but for free?

It's grand imo.

LibreOffice is a fork (split off of) the OpenOffice project that did not want to be affiliated with Oracle when they bought Sun. Support seems to be better with LibreOffice than with OO.

 

[TemplarKormac]

I'm dual booting from SSD (Win8) and IDE (Win7) without having to go into the bios. I just had to OS install both of them with the other drive disabled.

Then I just press the boot function key (For ASUS F8) and choose which drive to boot from.

I've also installed Win8 first and then Win7 secondly on the same setup but with both drives functional. Then a bootloader is setup in the main boot drive (win8) and when I start up the machine I get to choose after the initial system boot. The problem with that method is that if the first drive fails, so does the boot loader and now I have to perform a short win8 repair for it to recognize that there's only one OS left and setup for that.

Nono, SSDs are too rich for my blood. I'm running two SATA HDD's. Both of them are SATA 3's. A 1.5 TB with 8 and a 500GB with 7. I get to the selection screen, I select Windows 7, it kicks me back to the selection screen. So I go into BIOS without making any changes, exit and it boots 7 no problem. If I set 7 as default in msconfig, it takes me to the win7 bootloader and it does the same thing. I have never seen anything like this..

Also, it could be that my secondary HD needs to be set as the slave.. I've tried everything else.

Sata's don't have the master/slave IDE reservations. What's your computer/motherboard make/model?

Mine is a HP-ENVY h8-1534, Gigabyte "Angelica" chipset motherboard. AMD FX-6350 Six-core 3.9 Ghz processor, 10 GB DDR3 RAM.

 

[Ropey]

Nono, SSDs are too rich for my blood. I'm running two SATA HDD's. Both of them are SATA 3's. A 1.5 TB with 8 and a 500GB with 7. I get to the selection screen, I select Windows 7, it kicks me back to the selection screen. So I go into BIOS without making any changes, exit and it boots 7 no problem. If I set 7 as default in msconfig, it takes me to the win7 bootloader and it does the same thing. I have never seen anything like this..

Also, it could be that my secondary HD needs to be set as the slave.. I've tried everything else.

Sata's don't have the master/slave IDE reservations. What's your computer/motherboard make/model?

Mine is a HP-ENVY h8-1534, Gigabyte "Angelica" chipset motherboard. AMD FX-6350 Six-core 3.9 Ghz processor, 10 GB DDR3 RAM.

Have you tried the F Function boot menu for both drives?

I think it is F12 but I'm not sure. It may be F6. Can you try them at boot and see if you can access a BIOS driven boot menu without going into the actual BIOS?

If you find the menu and recognize the hard drives, can you select one and see if it boots from there and then the other as well?

 

[TemplarKormac]

Sata's don't have the master/slave IDE reservations. What's your computer/motherboard make/model?

Mine is a HP-ENVY h8-1534, Gigabyte "Angelica" chipset motherboard. AMD FX-6350 Six-core 3.9 Ghz processor, 10 GB DDR3 RAM.

Have you tried the F Function boot menu for both drives?

I think it is F12 but I'm not sure. It may be F6. Can you try them at boot and see if you can access a BIOS driven boot menu without going into the actual BIOS?

If you find the menu and recognize the hard drives, can you select one and see if it boots from there and then the other as well?

I'll try that.

 

[TemplarKormac]

The F12 key failed.

 

[Ropey]

The F12 key failed.

Did you try F6 as well? Did it give you the option of choosing drives? Could you choose the DVD, etc? In other words, did it fail after you had a chance to see the boot menu and choose a drive or did the F12 not give you a boot menu?

If you did not get a boot menu, did you try F6?

 

[TemplarKormac]

Pressing the F6 and Esc keys simultaneously after restarting causes the system to boot to the alternate OS of Windows 7 (After I select 7 from the 8 bootloader)

 

[TemplarKormac]

The F12 key failed.

Did you try F6 as well? Did it give you the option of choosing drives? Could you choose the DVD, etc? In other words, did it fail after you had a chance to see the boot menu and choose a drive or did the F12 not give you a boot menu?

If you did not get a boot menu, did you try F6?

The F12 key performed no special function unique to this machine.

 

[Ropey]

Pressing the F6 and Esc keys simultaneously after restarting causes the system to boot to the alternate OS of Windows 7 (After I select 7 from the 8 bootloader)

OK, that's like the second comparison I gave you. I've actually got mine working that way right now. With a choice from the bootloader but I don't need to press any keys. If I don't choose within a few seconds the bootloader defaults to win8. Otherwise I can choose to go with win7.

 

[TemplarKormac]

Pressing the F6 and Esc keys simultaneously after restarting causes the system to boot to the alternate OS of Windows 7 (After I select 7 from the 8 bootloader)

OK, that's like the second comparison I gave you. I've actually got mine working that way right now. With a choice from the bootloader but I don't need to press any keys. If I don't choose within a few seconds the bootloader defaults to win8. Otherwise I can choose to go with win7.

But if I select it normally from the bootloader, it will not boot to 7 at all. It will just return to the boot screen. I have to press these keys each time...